Author. 




Title 



18 ^3 



Imprint 



Id— 3B89©-1 apo 




.^>^^ie.»«^,;;^''^L^»45i^ VW^^^<^*^ 






AN 






IN COMMEMORATION OF THE 



FORTY SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY 



OF THE DECLARATION OF 



DELIVERED, JULY 4tH, 1823, 
BEFORE THE CITIZENS OF PROVIDENCE, R. I. 

AND PUBLISHED AT THEIR REQUEST. 



BY ALBERT G. GREENE, ESQ,. 



PROVIDENCE : 
Published by John Miller. 



1823. 






■.^ r*< ■■•■«<* %^'^ f*S , ^^♦i^'*^.i3K*''»^*^ 



GIFT 

ESTATE OF 

WILLIAM C. RIVSS 

APRIL, 1»tO 






<*> 



The history of the world presents an almost 
uninterrupted spectacle of Hoisery and of crime ; 
Man bending beneath the scourge of arbitrary 
power; Millions yielding implicit obedience to 
the mandates of a few; Tyranny, robed in pur- 
ple and throned in state ; with burdened Industry 
alternately toiling to meet her artificial wants, and 
prostrate in the dust, pouring forth his tribute of 
blood and treasure, at her footstool. 

Such are the cheerless scenes, afforded by the 
annals of former ages. But brighter prospects 
are opening to our view. The dark clouds of error 
which so long hung over the world, have already 
partially faded away, and many of the causes^ 
which held mankind in bondage, have in a great 
degree, ceased to exist. 

It may not be improper on this occasion, to de- 
vote a {'ew moments to the purpose of tracing the 
progress of Freedom in the world ; with some of 
the principal causes of its advancement. 

Among: the most enlightened nations of anti- 
quity, which have been dignified with the appella- 
tion of '•' republicks," there was scarcely one which 
could, with justice, claim that title. Their peo- 
ple were too ignorant to be able to rule them- 
selves; and whatever their forms of government 
may have been, in ;^cor^; they in practice, soon 
degenerated into pure aristocracy; and from this, 
there was but one more step to established despo- 
tism. 



Bowed down, beneath the cumbrous weight of 
their pagan mythology; acting more frequently 
from the dictates of passion, than from those of 
reason and experience : and comparatively desti- 
tute of the means of general improvement ; the peo- 
ple of the Grecian Republicks could not long con- 
duct a form of government, upon fixed and stea- 
dy principles. Hence causes, apparently trifling 
in themselves, often changed the destinies of a 
whole nation. 

In such a state of society, an increase of wealth 
caused only an increase of efieminacy, with lit- 
tle additional refinement of intellect. The march 
of mind was slow and unsteady. Their sa- 
ges and philosophers could extend their wis- 
dom but to a limited degree beyond their own im- 
mediate sphere. Their magnificent academies, 
indeed were open ; but had few allurements for 
an enervated and luxurious people. There were 
no means for instructing the great mass of their citi- 
zens. Even in the proudest days of Republican 
Rome, in comparj^gon with the whole number of 
her population, her portion of enlightened citizens 
must have been very limited. It was this which 
caused their ruin : for they could not discern the 
silent approach of their fate. Like every other 
people who have been even partially free, they 
could not have been made the vassals of a do- 
mestic despotism, until they had consented to as- 
sist in putting on their own fetters. When Ccesar 
crossed the Rubicon, he did not make slaves of the 
Romans ; but the Romans made a tyrant of Cse- 
sar. They had become intoxicated with the bub- 
ble of national glory ; and in their delusion, they 
chained themselves to the triumphal car of their 
idol. 

A nation so ignorant, could not long resist the 
tide of adverse fortune: and by the irruption of 



the northern hordes, all that was great or noble 
in her character, was buried in one common 
grave. When we compare her former situation 
with her present state, she resembles one of her 
tributary cities, over which the boiling lava of the 
volcano has passed; where all that she knew of 

^- splendor or of beauty, the exquisite triumphs of 
art, the wondrous productions of genius and of 
taste, her gold and her gems, the marble which 
almost seemed to breathe, and the canvass warm 
with the magic touches of the pencil; all lie bu- 
ried inonewide spread incrustation ; above whose 
impenetrable surface, some few ruins alone ap- 
pear ; to tell, that here, she once was ; but that she is^ 
no more. 

With the fall of the Roman empire, commenced 
a scene, from the contemplation of which, human- 
ity revolts, with horror. The glad tidings of the 
gospel had been given; the oracles of divine truth 
had gone forth ; but they had been sullied by the 
bigot, and made a mere state engine, in the hands 
of tyranny. The chilling blight of superstition 
fell upon the human intellect; which seemed to 
wither beneath its touch. The register of an- 
cient heroism, the record of past experience, the 
scroll which bore the names of those who had 
suffered in the cause of virtue, every thing great 

■' and godlike which had been revealed by Time, 
were together buried in the dark cloister of the 
convent. Humanity appeared to have submitted 
to her fate, and Man to have forgotten the image 
which he bore. 

Religious and political freedom equally depend, 
for their very existence, upon the general diffusion 
of knowledge ; and one of them can never flourish, 
independent of the other. Thus, when the pow- 
er and arrogance of the church was at its height, 
the chains of the feudal system were heaviest up- 



a 

on the christian world. The union of the church 
and state governments left all Christendom at the 
complete disposal of its rulers : — for, on the one 
hand, the questionless mandates of the state came 
forth under tlie awful sanctity of religion ; and on 
the other, the decrees of the church were support- 
ed bj the strong arm of the civil authority : and 
under this double despotism, Man, with every suc- 
ceeding age, was sinking deeper in a state of 
mental degradation. 

Although some master spirit would, at times, 
arise ; and soaring above the prejudices of his 
age, dare to assert the rights of scorned and per- 
secuted Reason; yet the dungeon or the stake 
were the sure reward of his temerity. The world 
then knew but two classes of men ;■— the tyrant 
and the slave. 

Superstition had poured her pollution into the 
pure fountain of Christian benevolence. She 
breathed into the sacramental cup, bearing the ho- 
ly symbol of redeeming love ; and it was convert- 
ed into a chalice of intoxicating poison. In the 
name of the god of truth, she deluded the 
world : In the name of the god of peace, she sent 
her exterminating legions abroad ; and made the 
plains of Palestine one wide Golgotha: and at home, 
she set the father against the son, and the brother 
a.gainst the brother. She filled her dungeons, she 
ptlied her rack, and fired her altar, heaped with 
human hecatombs ; dooming their undying spirits 
to an eternal hell ; in the name of the God of 

LOVE and mercy. 

But a change was preparing in the destinies of 
man. A new scene was commencing in the great 
d rama of Time. An unexpected light burst upon 
the world, when it hailed the invention of the art 
OF printing. 

In vain, every expedient that ingenuity could de- 
vise, or industry apply, was used, to crush theglo- 



9 

rious invention in its infancy. The means of 
knowledge, at this time, were held, almost exclu- 
sively, by the clergy and a few of the nobility. 
They knew that their power was founded upon 
the ignorance and credulity of the multitude. — 
They were aware that when the people began to 
read, they would begin to reason ; that they would, 
then, soon learn their rights, and begin to vindicate 
them. Hence the deluded people were told by 
their ecclesiastical tyrants, that wicked men " had 
made a new language which they called ' Greek ;' 
and that, in this language, a book had made its ap- 
pearance, full of daggers and poisons, called the 
New Testament." 

The scriptures were read by the priests, in La- 
tin ; in order that the people might be kept in ig- 
norance of their contents. The vengeance of the 
civil power and the anathemas of the church 
were poured out on all who dared to read them in 
the English language. This offence was punished 
bi/ death ; and the printers were denounced, as the 
workmen of the devil. 

These very means but served to hasten the end 
which they were intended to counteract ; for but 
seventy years elapsed from the time of this inven- 
tion before the commencement of the Protestant 
Reformation. This event arrested the attention 
of all Europe. The iron rod of intolerance fell 
heavy indeed upon the daring spirits who support- 
ed it ; and the wheel and the axe were busy with 
their victims. But the delusion, under which the 
christian world had lain for centuries, was weak- 
ened ; and the magic spell of papal supremacy 
was broken. 

With the gradual increase of knowledge, a cor- 
responding change was taking place, in the views 
and feelings of the people. Henry the Eighth, of 
England is said to have honored his subjects with 



10 

the appellation of '-'- Brutes :'''' but in little more 
than a century afterwards, the world saw a British 
sovereign arraigned and condemned for high trea- 
son against the people : and the proud descendant of 
a line of kings died the death of a malefactor. 

The period which almost immediately succeed- 
ed this, is one, to us, of peculiar interest. The 
rage of intolerance, the horrors of civil war, and 
the turmoils of faction, in Europe, were fast peo- 
pling the American colonies. It was then, that for 
the first time since the creation, the spot now co- 
vered by this noble dome, was trodden by the foot 
of civilized man. The busy hum of industry, 
which had been confined to the shores of the At- 
lantic, was spreading into the interiour; and the 
colonies were fast increasing in strength and num- 
bers. 

With their increase of prosperity, commenced 
the long course of oppression and contumely 
which eventually caused their separation from the 
mother country. This was borne with patient for- 
bearance, until forbearance was proved in vain ; 
and with submission, until submission became al- 
most a crime. 

Men are always disposed to submit to establish- 
ed forms and customs, rather than to risk the dan- 
ger of a change. Under equal laws and a just ad- 
ministration, the colonies would probably have 
remained, for ages, under the sway of the British 
sceptre : but the tyranny of Britain did for them, 
what they would not, for a long time at least, have 
done for themselves. They were driven by it, 
into their commerce ; they were driven by it, into 
their manufactures ; and they were driven by it, 
into their independence. Each act of despotism 
roused them to new exertions. They commenced 
with humble petitions for redress. These were 
linheard.—Succeeding wrongs and insults produ- 



11 

ced remonstrance and retaliation. This was fol- 
lowed by new acts of oppression ; which, at length, 
were nobly met, by open defiance ; with a pledge 
to support it, " with life, with fortune, and with 
sacred honour." 

We should never allow ourselves to be swayed, 
by feelings of national prejudice and animosity; 
but the history of every age, the annals of every 
nation, the record of their wisdom and their folly, 
their virtue and their crime, is the rightful legacy 
of posterity. It is the great chart, on which are 
displayed the shoals and quicksands on which na- 
tional power and happiness have been wrecked. 

No American should ever permit his feelings of 
philanthropy to go so far as to bury in oblivion the 
wrongs which his country received in her infancy : 
for when we forget the toil and suffering which 
gained us our independence, we shall have lost 
one of the firmest pillars that support it. 

We all know the dark story of our country's 
wrongs. Most of us read it in our childhood ; when 
the expanding mind could scarcely grasp its mean- 
ing. We have read it in after life ; and have clos- 
ed the volume which contained it, with admiration 
for those who were foremost in the struggle ; and 
with gratitude to Heaven, for its glorious issue. — 
But when we have heard the tale of some aged 
veteran, himself, as it were, the connecting link 
between our own times and those which tried 
men's souls ; when we have heard from his lips, 
the details of that awful conflict ; when we have 
listened, until the mind's eye could discern the 
group around the midnight watch-fire, unsheltered 
from the storms of winter, and wearied with hun- 
ger and toil and privation ; when we have, in im- 
agination, seen them upon the march ; leaving the 
blood from their naked feet, upon the ice and snow, 
at every step ; where is the American, deserving 



12 

the name, whose cheek has not mantled with in- 
dignation, at the thought ; that his country can ev- 
erbe unmindful of the price of her freedom, and of 
the sufferings which gave her the blessing of a day 
like this. 

There is one part of the conduct of the British 
government during the war of our independence 
which we can never forget without the most base 
ingratitude to the memory of the brave men who 
were its victims. It was their determination to 
force our country to an unconditional submission 
to their will. It was a part of their policy to crush 
and bruise the long-suifering spirit of the American 
people. They knew that our soldiers were few in 
number, but that in the field of fair and open war- 
fare, the attempt to conquer them, was vain : and 
the idea of confining their captives in the foul and 
fevered holds of their prison-ships, was the ready 
expedient of their unhallowed and remorseless 
cruelty. 

The number of our brave countrymen who were 
thus wantonly murdered, during the protracted 
conflict, has never been written, but by the pen of 
the Recording Angel. Hundreds were immured 
together in the dungeons of a single ship ; where 
amid noxious and putrid vapours, every breath was 
drawn with a throb of agony ; and a lingering con- 
finement, was certain death. In vain the joyous 
beams of the sun shone brightly over their prison ; 
for its genial heat was, to them, but a cause of tor- 
ture : the air of heaven was pure, above them ; but 
it met them not : and the clear fountain ran near 
them, on the bank ; but its waters sparkled not for 
them. And whenever the exterminating plague 
had claimed its allotted number, their mock inter- 
ment, among the whitening bones of their prede- 
cessors, on the beach, was but the signal for the 
approach of a new band of victims. But it is a 



13 

fact, which does honour to human nature, that 
when, among all this misery, the prisoners, or* 
board one of these ships, received an offer of in- 
stant liberation, on condition that they would join 
the standard of their oppressors ; but one individ- 
ual could be prevailed on, to desert the cause of 
his country ; and when this was known, his dying 
comrades raised their heads from the deck, and 
joined in a shout of indignation against the traitor. 

Far was it from the mind of Britain, when she 
commenced her series of insult and oppression up- 
on her colonies ; that she was trampling on a pow- 
er, which was so soon to prove her rival in the arts 
of life : she did not dream, that looking from her 
chalky cliffs, she was so soon to see her red cross 
drooping in the billow, beneath the prowess of a 
formidable nation : Little did she think, when her 
thunders first roused the Eagle of the forest, that 
before his avenging glance, her Lion was so soon 
to cower; and learn the emptiness of his boasted 
invincibility. 

We can never be too grateful to the memory of 
the men who guided our country through the 
storms and troubles of the Revolution. We can 
never too much admire the energy which bore her 
through a struggle, unparalleled in the annals of 
time ; or the wisdom which framed for her a sys- 
tem of government, which knows no equal on the 
face of the earth. Their memories will be revered 
while virtue shall exist; for their cause was the 
cause of Man. The name of Washington alone is 
like a wall of fire around the hberties of the Ameri- 
can people. And wherever in the wide world, 
Freedom shall unrol her standard ; that name 
will be her watcliword. Citizens of the American 
Repubhck! Children of Washington ! — —"Who 
is here so vile, he will not love his country .^" 



14 

Other nations, in former times, have received 
concessions and grants of privileges, from the mere 
will of arbitrary power. Kings and potentates 
have, at times, through policy or fear, been con- 
strained to yield to their subjects, some portions 
of their natural rights. But here it was, that the 
voice of a people was first heard, proclaiming their 
determination to make their own laws, and to be 
their own rulers ; founding their civil power on the 
deductions of their own reason; and the form 
of their religion, upon the dictates of their own 
consciences. The Magna Charta of England, the 
ancient boast of her citizens, was a concession 
drawn, at the point of the sword, by a number of 
petty tyrants, from their common master. It was 
more an establishment of baronial power, than of 
national freedom. And how different does this ap- 
pear, on the page of history, from the united de- 
claration of Three Millions of Freemen :-^We the 
People of the United States, in order to form a more 
perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestick 
tranquillity, provide for the common defence, pro- 
mote the general welfare, and secure the bless- 
ings of liberty, to ourselves and our posterity; do 
ordain and establishthisConstitution, for the Unit- 
ed States of America." 

To whatever fate our Republick may be doom- 
ed by the will of Heaven, there is, in all human 
probability, one curse which she can never know : 
— An Established National Religion. Although 
the spirit of intolerance is sufficiently strong among 
us; yet, under a form of government like our own, 
the very freedom of inquiry and the reaction of 
feeling which it produces, is one of the greatest 
barriers to its power. To produce a perfect union 
of sentiment, is impossible; and to hope for it, is 
absurd. Happily for us, such is the case. In a 
free country, there always must be different par- 



15 

ties in politicks as well as in religion. Although 
these will often cause individual and sectional 
feelings of bitterness; jet they, of necessity tend 
to promote that free spirit of inquiry, which it 
should ever be our pride to maintain, as the bright 
key-stone in the arch of freedom. 

The high and glorious example of our country 
has already excited the wonder and the imitation 
of other nations. It was hailed by the provinces 
of the South ; who trampling on the badges of 
their servitude, made their appeal to Heaven; 
and have poured out the free libation of their 
blood, upon the altar of Liberty. It has aroused 
a spirit in Europe, which all the force of her rulers 
will never be able to subdue. France and Spain 
have dared to assert their rights ; and Greece has 
arisen in her chains, and bared her arm for the 
combat. In her present attempt she may indeed 
be unsuccessful ; but her struggles will be like 
those of the dying Hercules. The power of the 
vindictive Turk may again hurl her to the dust ; 
but it can never quench the energy by which she 
is impelled. 

The great contest is not between separate na- 
tions in Europe ; but it is between the people and 
their oppressors. The Genius of Emancipation 
has gone forth in her might. She saw Spain pining 
under the bonds which she had worn for ages. — 
She heard the persecuted Catholic, groaning in 
the dungeons of the Inquisition ; and, in the name 
of suffering Humanity, demanded the liberation of 
the captive. She raised her wand of power, and 
smote the blood-cemented fabrick : its massy walls 
crumbled beneath the stroke; and the exulting 
prisoner sprang forth to liberty and life. 

As the light of mind continues to increase, its 
progress must become proportionably more rapid ; 
and if human reason can be relied on, it must 



16 

eventually prevail. The cause of Emancipation 
must, at length, triumph. It may be checked but 
it can never be subdued, by the confederated at- 
tempts of the Royal Banditti of Europe. 

It is a hope, cheering to the heart of the philan- 
thropist ; that though far distant, the period, may 
yet arrive, when Man shall rise, regenerate, in the 
noble attributes of his nature : when Tyranny shall 
leave her dungeons and her palaces; when the 
world shall learn the great truth, that the good of 
ALL is the universal interest ; and see its Laws and 
its Religion fixed on the broad pillars of Univer- 
sal Justice : 

When, o'er the earth, the storms of war shall cease ; 
And Man shall meet his fellow man, in peace :— 
Shall see eternal truth ascend her throne. 
With earth's free homage paid to her alone : 
Shall spurn the chain, the sceptre and the rod ; 
And raise his hands, unmanacled, to GOD. 



MGB£SS 




